Happy Friday Friends!
I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day on this beautiful Friday morning and that you have had a wonderful week!
This week I witnessed something that struck me as profound and has really had me thinking. I witnessed a person who wants to do one thing, to have all of the benefits associated with that action and this person also wants all of the benefits of the opposite action. I did not witness this in a spirit of judgement but rather a spirit of awakening, of conviction.
I can not help think about how often many of us - o.k., me! - do the exact same thing in our day to day lives. I want to have a great relationship with my Beautiful Bride and my 3 Tender Warriors but am I doing the things on a minute by minute, day to day, week to week basis that lead to these relationships being great? Are my actions - please remember that our actions are first led by our thoughts - in line with what my heart desires? It isn't possible to act one way and get the benefits of two different actions. It isn't possible to get the benefits of conditional love and unconditional love; we will get the benefits of the type of love we choose to give.
Who woke up this morning hoping for a failed marriage? A poor relationship with their kids? Who woke hoping to go to work and get fired today? I have an aspiring football player, baseball player and Navy Seal in my house. Do you think they are dreaming of losing every game, of going to war and getting obliterated. No, we all want to have great relationships and we all want to be successful (however we choose to define success...a different Happy Friday). The thing is Friends, we do not get what we want...in anything. We get what we give. If I want a great marriage, I have to be great in my marriage. I cannot be selfish and want the benefits of selfishness - get to do whatever I want, have everything revolve around me, my wants, my desires, my needs - and expect the benefits of selflessly serving my wife - seeing her grow to the fullness of who she was created to become, trust, intimacy (yeah, I said it! How many men want to selfishly serve themselves, ignore and mistreat their wives and then expect to have great sexual intimacy with their wives?). It is not going to happen Friends. For every choice we make, there are independent consequences associated with those choices. That might not be what we want, however what we want is irrelevant. We will ultimately get the benefits of what we do.
You wanna have a great relationship with you spouse and kids? Pour into them, love them unconditionally, serve them selflessly. You wanna have success at work? Do everything you do to the very best of your ability - standing safely under the shelter of character and integrity beyond reproach. You wanna be the best athlete you can be? Get out of bed, lift weights, run hard, eat right and perform to the very best of your ability every day. You wanna have great grades in school? Go to class, pay attention, do your homework and totally engage. Don't try to pass the class, strive to be the best you can be. Isn't it funny how the farther you get away from the extremely personal - at least to you - you get the easier it is to understand. Would anyone truly expect to sit around all summer, do nothing, sleep and eat and then expect to run out on a football field and be this highly conditioned, chiseled, high performing football player? Of course not, the idea is laughable. So why do we do it in our marriages, in our families? It is truly just as laughable. Unfortunately, the loses in marriages, in families have a much greater cost than the loses on a football field.
Your actions, your choices, are up to you. So are the consequences. You can't have it both ways Friends.
Please don't hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your families. I will always be willing to help you any way I can.
Have a great day, a wonderful weekend and please cherish those precious families.
Kev
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